A View of the World Via The Window of Africa

How we view the world --and all things in general -- is often inaccurate, distorted, biases and/or, at the very least, incomplete.

Here is a great example. Although I can't vouch for the accuracy of this graphic, it does a nice job of exposing our tendency toward what the creator defines as "immappancy."

As someone with a social science degree, I am a bit ashamed to admit that I would have visualized the US as larger than shown here.

The Parking Lot

Okay, I have to admit, I am somewhat of a bigot -- at least when it comes to fat people and parking lots. I have this thing about going to places with big parking lots. I detest sitting in my car waiting for people to back out, or dilly-dally as they move their carts, or cringe as they park in the middle of the road, waiting ten minutes for some slow poke to get in their car so they can take their spot.

This is why I park in the first available spot. I don’t care if it’s a half a mile away from the store. I don’t care if it’s over one hundred degrees outside. I park as far away from the entrance as possible.

Besides, the closer you park, the fatter you are. I am not making this up. The next time you are sitting in your car at the store, just watch for yourself. It is an amazing phenomenon. And I always wonder, do these people even realize this? Ironic, isn’t it? The people who are the most in need of a little extra exercise tend to be the ones that drive around for a half an hour so they can park six spots closer to the front door.

Look, I can in no way be considered thin, but just on this observation alone, I am walking the length of the parking lot.

Only in LA

Okay. Do I have this right? The future ownership fate of the Los Angeles Dodgers is presently at stake in a high profile divorce case. The owner’s ex is trying to lay claim to the team even though she signed a prenuptial agreement.

Her defense? She didn’t read it.

Actually, that may be over-simplifying it. But this blog, dodgerdivorce.com, gives the day-by-day court proceedings if you want a more in-depth analysis. Fun stuff if you like dirty laundry and wallowing in other people’s misery.

By the way, can you guess the ex’s previous profession? You know, the one that is using ignorance as her defense against a signed prenup? Yes, she was a lawyer.

Only in LA...

My Friend's View on 1070

I am occasionally asked about my opinion on 1070, Arizona's controversial immigration law. In fact, I have been in a few "discussions" on Facebook about it. It is a subject that doesn't work too well in that format, though. One or two lines isn't enough to explain it very well. Explaining my position takes some time and length and I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Before I do, I thought I would share this from a friend. Although his history is quite different (and more interesting than my homogeneous rural upbringing), outside of the conflict he feels on the subject, much of his reasoning falls in line with mine.

Hopefully, I will get around to writing my thoughts on the matter soon. In the meantime, take this wonderful perspective into account:

I've been digging with a tiny shovel lately. After the national events of the last 10 years I've rolled back quite a bit: too stressful. I have generally been avoiding political discourse on facebook as working in the public sector, I am concerned that it could cause me some professional heartburn at some point.

Honestly, I have not read the bill, but my S.O. has and I trust her interpretation.

This is probably going to bounce around a bit so bear with me.

Some background: I'm a Phoenix native. I did not realize it at the time but I grew up in a lower income neighborhood (there were worse) and went to a fully integrated inner-city high school.

In my youth, I was aware of illegals, generally known as "wetbacks" even though there is no river on the border. I don't think there were any at my grade school. The "Chicanos" or Mexican Americans or whatever they were called then (I called them Robbie or Pablo or whatever) got really mad if they got called wetback, because they were from HERE. Of course some of my Anglo friends called them that because they didn't like people that weren't Anglo. (Interesting side note: Anglos and Hispanics all called Joe at Joe's market a chink)

Once I got into high school, there were probably some illegals in the mix, but the only ones I knowledgably ever came into were the dishwashers at Bill Johnson’s Big Apple where I bussed tables for a short time. They taught a few of us some choice words in Spanish usually by calling us it. The Anglo and Black staff would occasionally yell “la migra” just for fun and watch them all run out the door opposite where the yelling was coming from.

The high school was a bit tumultuous, usually along racial lines, and I was a victim of racial attacks on several occasions, and I had some friends at a neighboring, more Anglo school that precipitated violence in the other direction.

A few years after high school, I went into the construction trades, specifically, painting. On the job sites, only 2 trades had illegals, landscapers, and plasterers (but usually only the stucco plasterers on the housing tracts).

Jumping now to present day:
I live in the neighborhood where Pruitt’s Furniture is. About 5 years ago, along Thomas road near the Home Depot was “day laborer central” on any given morning there would be 200+ day laborers in front of the Home Depot, and probably several hundred more along Thomas between 40th and 32nd street. Sheriff Joe started some round ups, some left. [My S.O. was] at ASU working on her bachelor’s then her master’s degrees. We went to a few city zoning/planning meetings one of which some executives from Home Depot were there, wanting to put in a “new mini-urban Depot at the old Toys-r-us location at 7th and Camelback. The conversation quickly turned to “not if it becomes like your 36th and Thomas store.” The reply was “we are aware we have a problem there.” A time later the signs went up, some of the laborers left, some just moved over by the Wal-Mart, some moved up the street to the 7-11.

Now, where does this put me? Conflicted. I’ve lived around immigrants of one generation or another all my life; I’ve been around racism all my life. Immigrants I can live with, most of the time. Racism I have no stomach for.

Now, as I previously discussed, there is no way that hundreds of humans can get together in those numbers for any length of time, before problems arise, whether it be just litter or if it escalates to violence. Additionally, it was quite obvious that there was not enough work for the amount of people looking for it, and this was before the housing bubble burst.

Meanwhile, the illegal immigrants come in via traffickers that seem to be expensive and abusive, preying on their fellow humans. Those traffickers more than likely have colleagues that also traffic drugs. I’ve lived here all my life and I know, without a doubt, that lots of drugs come through Phoenix from Mexico. Then there is that boogeyman “terrorist” that could come through a border like a sieve.

I’m conflicted about this bill because I am certain it has it’s roots in racism, but parts of it go after “those traffickers.” I’m conflicted, because if I support it, I can see myself getting lumped in with racists.

There’s the emotion, now some practicality:

Is this enforceable? Do our local law enforcement departments actually have the resources to follow through with the requirements? I doubt it.

Will this actually save money on the bilked medical bills etc. vs. the lawsuits that are sure to result? I doubt it.

Will this actually change anything? I doubt it. It certainly won’t get any incumbents out of office in November that supported it, nor, in other districts remove those against it.

Part of me thinks something needs to change, and I would rather it not be my cushy environment. I would like to see “those traffickers” go away. I would like immigrants to come in, but in smaller numbers, and so we know whom they are and that they want to work, raise families, and be grateful for the opportunity and not to sell our kids cocaine and heroin.

Most of the time though, this bill feels like being given a piece of notebook paper to cure the flu I might have. Sure, I might be able to blow my nose with it, but not very well, and it certainly is no cure.

For many, this bill seems to be a distraction to what the problems actually are. Californians seem to be loudly screaming “that’s racist” while they have some pretty heavy security on their southern border. My recent trip through California took us past 4 Home Depots where there were zero day laborers at any of them. Methinks they want those illegals to stay, or at least be filtered through AZ. None of those boycott leaders that I heard invited them into their community, nor petitioned the feds to send their border security resources to Arizona. I find that just damn hypocritical.

For others, the best thing to come out of this is open discussion of the real issues. The legal immigrants that I work with tell me that the process to become citizens is a 10-year process, and full of hoops to jump through. That seems excessive to me. One of them shared a story about their dad loosing or misplacing his green card. It took him 6 months to get a replacement. These things need to be streamlined.
Other items:
Corrupt Mexican government, still
Failed war on drugs, still

Here are some steps that might start to fix things:
Raise the quota for immigrants from Mexico.
Cut the wait for citizenship red tape.
Start looking at Mexicans living in heavy drug cartel violence areas as refugees.
Legalize pot, not decriminalize, legalize, regulate and tax.
As far as the corrupt Mexican government, I’m not sure where to begin there, but pulling a tooth or 2 out of the cartels might be a good place to start.

History Repeats

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

-Martin Niemöller (Germany circa 1940)


First they came for the illegal immigrants, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not an illegal immigrant.

Then they came for the Hispanics, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Hispanic.

Then they came for those with foreign accents, and I did not speak out --
Because I had no foreign accent.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

-Dane Nordine (Arizona circa 2010)

Off To The Next Bubble

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but I have lost patience with those seeking hope and those regurgitating rah-rah political platitudes about re-surging American greatness. I over hear conversations all the time about how our economy seems to have turned the corner. Things are getting better. Perception is reality, after all. If we wish it hard enough, maybe it will be true. In all things, we believe what we want to believe, what is convenient, what suits us best. Confirmation bias makes us instantly recognize those things that confirm our beliefs and subconsciously ignore those that contradict. So goes the economy.

The improvements in our economy remain nothing more than mis-perceptions because we ignore these simple truths: our economy is based on debt rather than equity; we concentrate too much on spending rather than producing anything of value; and, we ignore that real value is created from intelligent labor, not a printing press.

It is becoming obvious we have learned nothing from our past bubbles because we ignore how they came about in the first place. Therefore, we are destined to repeat them.

We want things to get better. Unfortunately, we spend so much time trying to convince ourselves that things are better without recognizing the errors that got us here in the first place. Rather than fix anything, we would rather create another bubble -- this time in the US Dollar -- and rebuild our economy on more false premises, rife with new forms of malinvestments. I greatly fear this new bubble will dwarf our preceding tech bubble and housing debacle.

As a country and a society, we have a choice to make: we can take our current path and delude ourselves that it is possible to borrow our way to prosperity, or, we can take the more difficult path and recognize that we must roll up our sleeves, spend less, pay off debt, save more, and use our labor to produce things of actual value.

It scares me that some of the smartest are betting against our ability to make the right choice. As Nassim Taleb put it recently in an interview with the guardian.co.uk: “I also have an exit strategy that others don’t: I make bets against US Treasury bonds. People lecture Greece about debt, but the Greeks are not in debt in comparison with America; in America debt is uncontrollable.”

Unless we are willing to recognize that our love affair with debt is creating our next bubble, we, as Americans, may have seen our better days.

The Whigs -- Black Lotus

Well, I am real excited to be off to see the Whigs (with the Hold Steady) in Santa Fe this week, so I put together this cheesy video as part of my self-training in Adobe After Effects. It is pretty stripped down and basic, but I gotta' start somewhere. I figure I will redo it as I advance.

Fun stuff. I obviously have a lot to learn, though...

Happy Fourth of July.